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Sorry, but time was short, storms kept threatening the power, I had a birthday, and I never got around to interviewing any writers this week. I’m afraid you’re just stuck with little old me, one year older and hopefully slightly wiser.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to wish me Happy Birthday last week. I am humbled by the outpouring of love from my friends and peers. It’s been a good life and it only gets better.

We are in the middle of 72 hours of some serious weather here in Olympia. No, not on the scale of a hurricane, but the winds are hovering around the fifty-to-sixty mph level, and the rain is non-stop, and flooding is happening . . . in other words, it’s great weather to write.

LET’S GET STARTED WITH THE QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.” Marcus Tullius CiceroTHOUGHT OF THE DAY

I’m currently teaching myself Twitter. I know, I know, I’m a little late to the show, but I can only do so much, folks, and Twitter has fallen by the wayside and that’s just the real of it, as one of my characters, Billy the Kid, is fond of saying.

Now the reason I mention that is because I realized there are a lot of social media sites available where writers can market their brand, and I mean A LOT!!!!! Too many, in my humble opinion, so I concentrate on just a few, namely Facebook, Pinterest, my blog, sometimes Linkedin, and now Twitter.

Why too many?

This is just my subjective opinion, so if you do differently, don’t get all bent out of shape over it. I’m more concerned with doing quality marketing rather than blizzard marketing. I want to do select sites and do them extremely well, rather than belong to twenty different social media sites and do them poorly.

And my other concern is I never want to flood the market with my book marketing to the point of becoming an annoying pain-in-the-butt.

TIP OF THE DAY

Be a real person first and a writer second.

I am betting the metaphorical farm on my personality and my writing abilities. I am convinced, in the long run, that the quality of my writing and my personality will both be huge factors in whether I am successful or not. In that light, it is very important to me that I let you know me as a real human being and not just some huckster who is trying to sell his books. I want there to be a very real personal relationship between me and my followers, a connection of two human beings.

I may never be famous or rich because of writing, but the followers I do have will follow me into hell, and I can live with the smaller numbers knowing I’ve touched, deeply, a select few.

Be a real person first and a writer second!

UPDATE ON NIUME

I got my first payout, a grand total of ten bucks, but hey, it only took a month and hey, that was without me making much of an effort on that site. In other words, I think NIUME has real possibilities for someone who really wants to become an active member of that community.

CONTESTS TO CONSIDER

FanStory has a Lune Poetry Contest with a deadline of October 24th, a $100 prize for the best. What is Lune? It is 5 syllables in the first line, three in the second, and five in the third…it does not have to rhyme. Check it out here.

Write a Halloween story for another $100 prize, also offered on FanStory. Check out story requirements by following this handy link.

A SHOUT OUT

A shout out to a new writer friend of mine, Sarah Potter, on her website SarahPotterWrites. This is a talented and personable writer and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed by following her.

A QUESTION ABOUT LENGTH

Someone recently asked me “what’s the difference between a short story and a novella?”

The answer is you!

Ta-Da!!!!!

Seriously, the difference is length. A short story is in the neighborhood of 3,000-8,000 words, give or take a paragraph. A novella is shorter than a novel, so figure 10,000-60,000 words. Please note these designations are flimsy at best so, my best suggestion . . . don’t worry about it!

Oh, wow, thanks for the kind mention, Billy. So sweet of you 🙂
Re Twitter … I don’t meet with much success marketing my books there. It probably works for those who are already famous, but there are so many indie authors scrabbling for attention that it’s like being lost in a vast crowd where everybody is shouting at once. Often, immediately you follow an author, you get a direct message from them, demanding that you check out their book. To me, this is akin to saying hello to a stranger at a cocktail party and immediately have that person tell you to buy something from him or her!
If you have time to spend engaging and sharing other people’s links, then it probably works. I do try to share links to other people’s blog posts when I’m having a big read. Then it’s a case of rolling two activities into one.
Good luck 🙂

It’s my pleasure, Sarah, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the marketing mess. I’ll just stumble along like I always do and hope for the best, dabbling here and there. It’s what I’m best at….random meanderings.

I use twitter but to be honest not enough time on there to make friends, so I really should put more effort into it! As for your promoting, you are fine, other people well, (cough) could learn from your discretion!! LOL!

O brother! Two time reading, two perhaps three things got my attention. The birthdays: we do not get much older once we begin celebrating the anniversaries of twenty ninth birthday. Kind of more fun. A quote of the day reminds of the apostle Paul’s writing in one of his epistles ‘ everytyhing in moderation ‘ – how nice a Jewish thelogian and a Greek philosopher having similar thoughts flow. Quality above quantity, good advise. The next is difficult to say, and wrong for me not to say it concernig my friend Bill Holland I follow faithfully, learnig a lot, and not be able to finish following him due to final entry into the quoted destination… My desire is one day shake hands and have a lengthy conversation with every friend I know electronically, but that has to be the other place opposite to hell. Well that’s my idea being real person, then a impresario.
Good night from the neighboring country where the USA comes on north side.

Bill, being with little old you is certainly not “stuck”. You are wise, funny, and (best of all) you seem to genuinely care about other people. Conversing with you is not a “me-me-me” show.

I hope Twitter works for you. I signed up, but have done little to nothing with it since then. Like you, I feel there are just too many avenues. I can try to use a few and do them pretty well, or try to do them all, and do all of them half-assed.

I have certainly learned much from following you on WordPress and HubPages. It has been a blessing in many ways. I love your closing statement. It is similar to another “southern” saying I heard once: “My compliments to your mother”, quite a tribute to parenting. Enjoy your week and stay safe up there.

Good to hear that you have joined Twitter. I use it every day, for tweeting my hubs, Niume articles and Flipboard. Good to hear that you made payment on Niume. You got there quickly. Did you have many referrals sign up? I feel a little shy to ask people to sign up through my referral code.

Sally, I had a couple referrals. As for asking them, I simply said here’s the link if you want to do it. I left it up to them and gave them the option, but I really don’t feel like I pressured anyone, so even this shy boy felt okay about it.

Big Bro, I just love your writing. Always have. 🙂
And I love that part about being real. I’m working on something that I hope finally merges all the interests of the “real me.” 🙂 We’ll see.
Hope that you’re “weathering the storm” just fine. I know you are: you’ve got a heart of light and that makes me a fan for life! Sending hugs!

Thanks for all you do, Bill. I don’t know what took me so long to get to your website, but I will be following it from now on. BTW: Joyce Fischer on HubPages. @craftnomad on Twitter and most other places. Website: http://www.craftnomad.com I save the best stuff for the website as I have larger plans for a lot of those pieces.

I’m so late to this party! Wanted to stop in and say “hey”. I hope you made it through the stormy weather okay. How’d the critters fare?

Twitter is very confusing to me. I know how to click the little bird (as opposed to flicking the bird :-)) to share a post, but that’s about it. Cristin seems to have mastered marketing on Twitter. Perhaps you can reach out to her.

Hi Sha and yes, everyone survived the wind and deluge. As for Twitter, I’m resigned to the fact that I can’t master all social media. Cristin, I’ve found, is too busy with her own career, much too busy to socialize with old friends on HubPages. She’s moved beyond all that and I wish her well.